Enough of Being Depressed About The Elections – Time to Rise Up

Think about other dark times in our history … gather strength – and get back to work!Chris Skates

Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying on our backs and hugging the elusive phantom of hope, until our enemies have bound us hand and foot? – Patrick Henry

Second Amendment, No Compromise, No RetreatAmmoLand Gun News

Manasquan, NJ –-(Ammoland.com)- I don’t know about you, good reader, but I am tired. I am tired of talking and hearing about politics. I am tired of talking heads on “expert” panels telling me what “most Americans” truly want, or truly believe in, when those same experts clearly have no idea what I think or what anybody I know thinks.

I am tired of losing. I am tired of losing elections, my income through taxes, my country through a trampling of the Constitution, my culture to hedonism, my children’s future through liberalism – and my once energized political campaigners to depression.

When I am honest with myself, since the election there have been times when I’ve had to force myself to write my columns. I wonder if anybody is listening, or if anyone cares about what is happening. Even among those loyal Americans who are reading this and that care very deeply, even among my fellow conservatives, I sense an overall feeling of burnout and defeatism. I know it is there because I’ve struggled with it myself.

But the message I want to share with each of you today, and the message I think Patrick Henry was communicating back in his era was this: Get over it!!

Remember, I am talking to the man in the mirror as much as I am talking to anyone. But do any of us really have anything to be “burnt out” about? When we compare the challenges and sacrifices that we face to those faced by our founding fathers, the soldiers at Valley Forge, the prisoners on the Bataan Death March, or the paratroops and Army troops who shivered and died during the Battle of the Bulge – we begin to feel very soft and very silly.

I recently had chance to talk to a man whose father flew fifty combat missions as a waste gunner in WWII. His father NEVER talked about the war. When he tried to talk about it, he got so emotional that he couldn’t finish the story. This man told me that one day his father did share one of his most difficult experiences. He had completed the milestone of his fiftieth air combat mission, and therefore the war was over for him. He didn’t have to go up again.

He could have caught a flight back to the US, but he chose to wait for his best friend, who was on his 49th mission. When his friend was leaving for number 50, the two agreed that they would celebrate and then fly back home together. His friend’s plane came back to base terribly damaged. When it landed the father knew in an instant that his friend was dead. He had to fly home alone.

“You don’t know,” the father wagged a finger at my friend that day. “You don’t know what we went through. I can’t describe it in words. You don’t know what we went through, so that you could be free and have the quality of life that you have now.”

American prisoners, some with their hands behind their backs, get a brief respite during the Bataan Death March.

So what should our generation do? Should we throw up our hands and quit trying to change the government through the legal and peaceful means that were won and preserved for us? Should we dig bomb shelters and buy survival food, and then turn on “American Idol” – and tune out of the public discourse, as we wait for the whole American system to collapse?

I know many of us are discouraged. I know the “mainstream media” force us to compete in a heavily rigged game. I know that we have been, and continue to be, blindsided by the ferocity with which our protections against an intrusive state are being bulldozed, and the way our values have suddenly become passé. Still, we barely know what tough times are.

We have yet to absorb anything like the blows that our ancestors took, while never wavering.

If we learned nothing else at the Conservative Political Action Committee events, we should have learned this: The heart is there. The fight is there in the people. Our fellow political soldiers have not given up.

It is therefore incumbent upon every one of us to fan those sparks to a flame. We have to be our own media. Rush, Beck and Hannity, et cetera are not enough. We must inform our own neighbors. We must cajole the non-participants in our own communities into full engagement and participation.

We have to fight, and then falter, and then get up and fight some more. With or without this or that minority group or special interest group’s vote, there are more than enough people in this country to defeat the nation-collapsing progressive agenda.

Ninety three million eligible voters did not vote in 2012. We must make it our mission to bring those voters to the polls in 2014 and 2016 as conservative voters.

Patrick Henry’s challenge to his countrymen is all the more fitting now. This is no time to let up, no time to give up, and no time to surrender.

Chris Skates is an energy specialist and novelist who won the best historical fiction award from the Christian Writers Association for The Rain: A Story of Noah and the Ark, and rave reviews for his second novel, Going Green: For Some It Has Nothing To Do With The Environment.

One thought on “Enough of Being Depressed About The Elections – Time to Rise Up”

People are listening, but you are ^ up there and we are down here. Other than getting an opportunity to whine and express views we have no real voice. No two way communication here.

Much like the present political system.

I agree we do not talk about war. It is a nasty thing and the memories are sometimes best left alone. But they do not define most of us.

I do talk with young people considering joining the service and I express the dangers involved as well as the benefits of military service and the deceptions the present government uses to entice children to their deaths.

The grandiose promises made that have been taken away while I was on active duty. The simple fact that the US Government does not always make good on their promises. Free medical for family and self now comes with a fee. Awesome benefits that existed in the exchanges are now weak at best. Though if I ever wanted a Gucci purse which is still well out of most enlisted means (frivolous spending)it can be bought at a significant discount.

We used to be able to buy guns and ammo now we are not allowed to carry knives with blades over 4 inches. I carried a 5 inch Scotland Yard lock blade in Viet Nam and was busted for carrying it just a couple years later. There seems to be a double standard.

We are told we are “ambassadors of America” yet we are not paid like them and how they rarely if ever go into harms way while we are ordered to so daily.

How the chain of command takes credit while enlisted are honored posthumously. The enlisted man keeps the ships floating and keeps the war machines rolling while the political elite push “policy” that kills innocents and fulfills Corporate greed.

How many soldiers benefit from back room corporate dealings and corporate sales of war machine materials? Oh we get a beer fest on the pier every now and then and some hats with missile logos but not much else.

You mention that our losses ensured that the US remained free, and for 22 years I honestly believed that I am disabled as a direct result of military service. Since 1996 I have had plenty of time to study and do research. On learning that we entered the Viet Nam war because of an “incident” that never happened, a time where 58 thousand American soldiers lost their lives.

I lived through a “cold” war that was not as cold as most people think.

I now think that the threat of Communism from Russia was not as much a threat as the threat of socialism coming out of my present government.

You say it is time to rise up, and I agree. However you choose a symbol of a black hand and that in itself is valuable but misleading. This is not a Black Panthers rally and the Second Amendment effects all Americans So a more appropriate black outlined white hand that represents the 74% majority of Americans is more appropriate. Thought I do not intend to minimize the importance of EVERY American involved.

I just think it is important not to create some kind of sense that creates another inappropriate stereotype.